A table for three happened as a coincidence.
On the rooftop of our atelier stood this very basic chair with a metal frame, the wooden seat and backrest had sort of been rotten. I liked the basic metal structure and thought well I’d do something with it. The metal frame had this appealing green, rusty appearance which I loved. I like rusty, lived-through, or aged materials, texture-wise and story wise. They have lived already. Also, the idea of using something that goes to waste otherwise is something very satisfying and useful to me. If you mess up, it’s not the worst thing ever since you didn’t pay a cent, but if you succeed, you did a good thing. More importantly, the dump materials you find form already an incentive to do something with it, you get to improvise, yet not out of the blue. You have already something concrete to work with, often leading to surprising results, products you could not have imagined without these random but concrete elements.
I first get rid of the rotten wood of the chair and look at the naked thing. After some staring, the idea of using it as a table support comes into my mind. Sounds like a pretty good idea to have a table of which the supports are also chairs you can sit on, so I continue on that idea.
Some days before, I had cut a piece of residual wood into a trapezoidal table top, to use as a table mounted between two walls. That didn’t really work out too well, so I had my table top for my table for three. By that time, the table for three was not already a thing. I had the stool as a support on the one side and put a trestle I had found somewhere on the other side as a support. I painted the table top in red, let it dry, and left it, still unmounted on these two complete different supports. When dry, I still left this unmounted constellation of elements be what they were. For about a week, maybe two, this constellation of elements had functioned as a table for paint, nails, screws, plaster, tools etcetera. It functioned quite well for this purpose. Until I decided I should finish it, the cause being that I was going to move in to a studio for the summer months, a place that I would use as a showroom for the stuff I had made, some furniture and some paintings. At least I should have my own table to eat, or work on.
So this coincidental constellation of elements was starting to become ‘a table for three’. I transformed the triangular support (trestle) into a rectangular support with the idea in mind of using it a little rack to stack stuff underneath the table top. Some leftover planks two finish the bottom level. It somehow remained with one level to stack stuff. Leftover planks of the same kind have been used for the seat of the stool support. To create a visual identity between these two supports of a complete different character, I did an attempt to paint the things white, at least the rectangular support and the seat of the stool - I wasn’t going to paint the metal frame - but the paint ran out and so it remained unfinished, having this work-in-progress look, which of course did not matter to me at all. More important is that the product can be used, that it has its purpose. It is not a finished product or design in the sense that it is still open for improvements, adjustments, perfections, some size adjustments, adjustments in stability and somehow that makes it all the more interesting. The product is being used, lives and has this openness to be adapted to changing needs or wishes.
Preliminary sketch
